CANANDAIGUA — The Civil Service Employees Association is taking legal action against Ontario County, claiming that the process in which the county has pursued selling its nursing home is illegal. Ontario County Administrator John Garvey said the county received notice Thursday of a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court regarding the sale of the Ontario County Health Facility. A petition was filed by the CSEA and Brenda King, an employee at the nursing home, against the county, the county Board of Supervisors, board Chairman Jack Marren, Garvey and the Centers for Specialty Care Group LLC. According to the petition, the CSEA — the state’s largest public employees union — and King seek “overturning and annulling as illegal the resolution authorizing the illegal sale of the Ontario County Health Facility on the basis that it is ‘determined to be unnecessary for public use.’” In April, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to declare the county’s 98-bed nursing home in Hopewell, as well as the approximately 7 acres of land it is situated on, as surplus. According to the resolution, the board must determine that the property is no longer necessary for public use prior to any possible transfer to the private sector. On Aug. 1, the board approved a resolution to accept a bid of $2 million for the facility from the Centers for Specialty Care Group — a private firm that operates more than 20 nursing homes and other health care facilities in New York and New Jersey. The county still needs to reach a closing agreement with the firm on the sale. “Our suit challenges the declaration of the Ontario County Health Facility as no longer necessary for public use,” said Lynn Miller, a spokesperson for the CSEA Western Region. “... How can you say it’s surplus when people live there? Clearly, there is a need when people live there.” Garvey said he does not believe a court date has been scheduled yet. “The county attorney has not yet had the opportunity to review the lawsuit, but the action was expected, as CSEA has filed in many other counties across the state a similar action,” Garvey said Thursday. Miller said the CSEA is involved in a similar lawsuit in state Supreme Court against Steuben County, in which the CSEA claims the county violated the law when it declared its nursing home not necessary for public use. According to the lawsuit filed in April, Steuben County also broke the law by hiring real estate marketing company Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services — the same firm Ontario County hired to market the sale of its nursing home — to solicit buyers, rather than putting the facility out for open bidding, said CSEA spokesperson Roger Sherrie. Steuben County reached a deal in December with Centers for Specialty Care Group for $10.75 million. The judge has not made a ruling yet in the suit, Miller said. — Includes reporting by Corning Leader writer Derrick Ek